Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus



Nov. 27, 1951 E. T. LORIG 2,576,233

CONTINUOUS STRAND HELICAL CONVEYING APPARATUS Filed April 8, 1949 2 SHEETS-SHEET 1 r 8 Q Q g y HI 9 I IIHIUWH S 0 co Q- .v I IO I II N Q E In a H t I" I II J g 2 g cu I 'II I N 25 N a X H H L- 1 N I IN V EN TOR. EDWIN T. LQRJG ATTORNEY E. T. LORIG Nov. 27, 1951 CONTINUOUS STRAND HELICAL CONVEYING APPARATUS Filed A ril 8, 1949 2 SHEETS-SHEET 2 INVENTOR. EDWIN T. LORIG ATTORNEY Futented Nov. 27, 1951 CONTINUOUS STRAND HELICAL CONVEYING APPARATUS Edwin '1'. 1.5.1., Ross Township,

1a., assignor to United States Steel Count Allegheny Company, a corporation of New Jersey Application April 8, 1949, Serial No. 86,375

9 Claims.

This invention relates to a continuous strand helical conveying apparatus and more particularly to such apparatus for handling flat strip products. In the processing of flat strips in coil form, the processing equipment, such as continuous annealing furnaces, picklers, paint and enamel driers, must be extremely long if it is desired to process the strip rapidly. Since sufficient space is often not available for the equipment necessary to process the stri rapidly, the processing has been carried out at a much slower rate than desired. In order to decrease the amount of space now necessary, I have devised a helical conveyor or reel which in combination with an auxiliary reel or roll will permit leading a single continuous strand of strip onto the T- tating reel body in the same relative constant position at all times without lateral deviation. In other words, each increment of strand width initially contacting the reel or deposited thereon, will do so at a, point in a constant rotating plane perpendicular to the axis of the rotating reel.

It has been proposed to provide helical conveying reels having a plurality of small rollers around their periphery with the rollers being free to rotate on their own axes and caused to rotate by frictional contact of the strip under tension as the reel is rotated at controlled peripheral speeds which are at variance with the linear speed of the strip. The main disadvantage of such reels is that the supporting rollers are retarded and will not rotate freely on their own axes when subjected to cumulative radial pressures imposed by the helical or convoluted bands of strip applied to the reel under tension. This rotative retarding effect is directly proportional to the number of convoluted bands on the reel periphery and, in turn, on the supporting roll bodies. If a suflicient number of such strip convolutions under tension are in contact with the supporting rolls, the cumulative rotative retarding effect will become so great that rotation of the supporting rolls on their own axes will cease entirely. The pressure between strand and supporting roll surfaces also increases with each succeeding convolution on the reel if the supporting rolls remain operative. Tension in the strip as it is being convoluted increases progressively accompanied by detrimental stretch of the workpiece and/or abrasion between the rollers and the workpiece. Various other operating disadvantages are present in this type of reel.

It is therefore an object of my invention to provide helical conveying or reeling apparatus having rollers on the periphery of the reel, the rotation of which is not dependent on the workpiece tension and which will permit each helical convolution of the strip to be equally spaced across the body of the reel with a uniform distance between strand convolutions and in which there will be no slippage between the strip and the reel body.

Another object is to provide such helical conveying apparatus in which the pitch of the con-- volutions may be varied.

These and other objects will be more apparent has its axis substantially parallel to that of reel 2. As best shown in Figure l, the reel 2 has a housing 6 and l at the ends thereof provided with helical cam grooves 8. The left hand housing I is provided with a bearing l0 and the right hand housing is provided with a bearing 12. The hearing l2 supports a rotatable hub H which is provided with a bearing It for rotatably receiving a shaft 18. The other end of shaft I8 is supported in the bearing Ill. Mounted on the shaft II for rotation therewith is the reel body 20 which consists of spaced apart plates 22 having a plurality of aligned openings 24 around their peripheries for receiving rotatable rollers 26. The left hand end of the rollers 26 extend through the openings 24 into the cam groove 8 with a cam roller 28 being mounted on the end of the shaft within the cam groove. The right hand end of the rollers 26 extend into the adjacent cam groove 8 and have cam rollers 28 mounted thereon within the cam groove. A gear 30 is mounted on the hub 14 between the right hand housing 6 and plate 22. Keyed to each of the rollers 25 is a pinion 32 which meshes with the gear 30. Mounted on the outboard end of the hub It for rotation therewith is a gear 34. A gear 36 is mounted on the extreme right end of shaft It. The gear 34 is rotated at a speed proportional to that of gear 36 from a suitable variable speed drive mechanism 38 through the pinions l0 and 42, re-

spectively. The variable speed drive mechanism 38 may be of any suitable type and is provided with a hand wheel 44 for adjusting the ratio between the speeds of gears 34 and 36. The end portions of the rollers 26 are made separate from the main portion thereof to provide for assembly. Each ofthe cam grooves 8 is circular with the axes thereof coinciding with the axis of shaft l8. Between points A and B each of the cam grooves is inclined from a transverse plane in a direction to cause the rollers 26 to move rapidly in one direction, while between points B and A the cam grooves are inclined in the opposite direction so that the rollers return gradually and uniformly to their original position.

The operation of the device is as follows:

The strip S to be conveyed helically across the face of the reel is fed to one end of the reel 2 and is passed from the reel 2 around the roll 4, back to reel 2 andaround the reel 2 back to the point of entry of the strip as shown in Figure 2. The end of the strip is then clamped loosely to the oncoming strip to form a complete circle. Sufilcient back tension is applied to the entering strip to tighten up the band to provide friction between the band and the reel body. The reel is then rotated from the variable speed drive 38. Rotation of the shaft l8 causes the rollers 26 to move around the axis of the shaft H3. The gear 34 drives the hub M ,to rotate the gear 30, which through the pinions 32 causes each of the rollers 26 to rotate about its axis at a speed proportional to the movement of the rollers 26 around the axis of shaft 18. This combined movement causes the strip S to move gradually across the width of the reel while it is in contact therewith. Between points A and B the rollers 26 are not in contact with the strip S and are moved in an axial direction opposite to that of the strip. Between points B and A the rollers 26 move laterally in unison the same amount per degree of rotation in the same axial direction as the strip. Therefore, there is no lateral movement between the rollers 26 and no movement of the strip relative to the surfaces of the roll. In other words, the cam track between points B and A is helically formed at its base with the angle between the base and a plane perpendicular to the axis of reel rotation being the same at all points. The relative speed of the rollers 26 about their own axes and about the axis of the shaft [8 determines the pitch of the helix. This ratio and therefore the pitch of the helix can be changed by adjusting the hand wheel 44. The strip S can be removed from the reel 2 at any point. A reel similar to reel 2 may be used in place of the roll 4. This is particularly desirable when helically conveying relatively wide strip. In such a case the device would operate in substantially the same way and it is to be understood that a rotatable roll as used in the claims refers to both a plain surfaced roll as shown or a reel similar to reel 2.

While one embodiment of my invention has been shown and described it will be apparent that other adaptations and modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the following claims.

I claim:

1. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus comprising a rotatable reel and a rotatable roll spaced therefrom with its axis substantially parallel to the axis of the reel, said rotatable reel having a housing at each end thereof, a reel body rotatably mounted in said housings, a plurality of rotatable rollers mounted on said reel body major portion of said cam grooves having the bottoms thereof arranged at an oppositely extending helix to move the rotatable rollers axially an equal amount per degree of reel revolution in the opposite direction, means for rotating said reel body, and means for rotating said rotatable rollers at a speed proportional to the speed of said reel body.

2. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus according to claim 1 in which means are provided for changing the ratio between said speeds to change the pitch of the helix of the strand being conveyed.

3. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus comprising a rotatable reel and a rotatable roll spaced therefrom with its axis substantially parallel to the axis of the reel, said rotatable reel having a housing at each end thereof, a reel body rotatably mounted in said housings, a plurality of rotatable rollers mounted on said reel body around the periphery thereof with their axes parallel tov the axis of said reel body, each of said housings having a. helically formed cam groove therein facing the opposite housing, a cam roller mounted on each end of each rotatable roller and extending into the cam groove, the bottoms of said cam grooves adjacent said roll being arranged at an angle with a plane perpendicular to the axis of the reel to move the rollers axially in one direction, the major portion of said cam grooves having the bottoms thereof arranged at an oppositely extending helix to move the rotatable rollers axially an equal amount per degree of reel revolution in the opposite direction, means for rotating said reel body, and means for rotating said rotatable rollers at a speed proportional to the speed of said reel body.

4. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus according to claim 3 in which means are provided for changing the ratio between said speeds to change the pitch of the helix of the strand being conveyed.

5. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus comprising a rotatable reel and a rotatable roll spaced therefrom with its axis substantially parallel to the axis of the reel, said rotatable reel having a housing at each end thereof, a bearing in each housing, a shaft mounted for rotation in said bearings, a pair of spaced apart plates mounted on said shaft for rotation therewith, a plurality of aligned openings around the periphery of said plates, a plurality of rotatable rollers extending between said plates and mounted in the openings in said plates, each of said housings having a helically formed cam groove therein facing the opposite housing, the ends of said rollers extending into said cam grooves, the bottoms of said cam grooves adjacent said roll being arranged at an angle with a plane perpendicular to the axis of the reel to move the rollers axially in one direction, the major portion of said cam grooves having the bottoms thereof arranged at an oppositely extending helix to move the rotatable rollers axially an equal amount per degree of reel revolution in the opposite direction, a gear between one of said plates and the adjacent housing, means for mounting said gear for rotation about said shaft, a. pinion keyed to each of said rotatable rollers and meshing with said gear, means for rotating said shaft, and means for rotating said gear at a speed proportional to the speed of said shaft.

6. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus according to claim 5 in which means are provided for changing the ratio between said speeds to change the pitch of the helix of the strand being conveyed.

7. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus comprising a rotatable reel and a rotatable roll spaced therefrom with its axis substantially parallel to the axis of the reel, said rotatable reel having a housing at each end thereof, a bearing in each housing, a shaft mounted for rotation in said bearings, a pair of spaced apart plates mounted on said shaft for rotation therewith, a plurality of aligned openings around the periphery of said plates, a plurality of rotatable rollers extending between said plates and mounted in the openings in said plates, each of said housings having a helically formed cam groove therein facing the opposite housing, a cam roller mounted on each end of each rotatable roller extending into the cam groove, the bottoms of said cam grooves adjacent said roll being arranged at an angle with a plane perpendicular to the axis of the reel to move the rollers axially in one direction, the major portion of said cam grooves having the bottoms thereof arranged at an oppositely extending helix to move the rotatable rollers axially an equal amount per degree of reel revolution in the opposition direction, a gear between one of said plates and the adJacent housing, means for mounting said gear for rotation about said shaft, a pinion keyed to each of said rotatable rollers and meshing with said gear, means for rotating said shaft, and means 6 for rotating said gear at a the speed of said shaft.

8. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus according to claim 7 in which means are provided for changing the ratio between said speeds to change the pitch of the helix of the strand being conveyed.

9. Continuous strand helical conveying apparatus comprising a rotatable reel and a rotatable roll spaced therefrom with its axis substantially parallel to the axis of the reel, said rotatable reel having a housing at each end thereof, a reel body rotatably mounted in said housings, a plurality of rotatable rollers mounted on said reel body around the periphery thereof with their axes parallel to the axis of said reel body, means for moving the rollers axially in one direction during the time they are adjacent the roll, means for moving the rollers axially an equal amount per degree of reel revolution in the opposite direction during the rest of their travel, means for rotating said reel body, and means for rotating said rotatable rollers at a speed proportional to the speed of said reel body.

EDWIN T. LORIG.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent;

UNITED STATES PATENTS speed proportional to Number Name Date 1,960,743 Junkers May 29, 1934 I 2,380,526 Hoagland July 31, 1945 2,444,315 Sever June 29, 1948 2,491,038 Ewing Dec. 13, 1949 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 145,992 Germany Nov. 25, 1903 

